An organization may seek to record information about interactions between parties and the organization. Typically the organization will store transaction records in a central database. In a business context, the organization may be a business, such as a financial institution, and the parties may be customers. If the business is large, it may include different channels with which the customers interact. Customer interaction information recording and retrieval may enhance customer service quality.
Often, each channel in the business will maintain its own customer history records. Typically, one or more of the different channels will have customized requirements for the type and format of information that is stored in the records. Each of the channels may use data entry and reporting platforms that have data storage formats that are not designed to be processed by the data entry and reporting platforms of other channels.
For example, in the financial services industry, a business's call center may record for each customer transaction a transaction type, such as “stop payment,” “fraud report,” or “new check order.” The call center may require that attributes of the transactions be recorded. Table 1 shows typical attributes of the call center's transaction types.
TABLE 1Typical attributes for call center transactiontypes.Transaction typeAttributeStop paymentRequest dateRequest timeAccount numberCheck numberFraud reportRequest timeNumbers of accounts affectedFraudulent event dateNew check orderAccount numberCosigner nameCheck styleNew check starting number
The business also may include, for example, a web chat customer assistance channel as part of a business web site. The web chat customer assistance channel may record for each customer transaction a transaction type such as “Password assistance,” “web site navigation assistance,” and “product information request.” The web chat customer assistance channel may require that attributes of the transactions be recorded. Table 2 shows typical attributes of the chat customer assistance channel.
TABLE 2Typical attributes for chat customer assistancechannel transaction types.Transaction typeAttributePassword assistanceCustomer nameCustomer logonCustomer secret question replyWeb site navigationCustomer nameassistanceCustomer last page viewedCustomer information requestedTarget web pageProduct information requestCustomer nameInformation requestedProduct suggestedInformation or link provided
The transaction types and corresponding attributes of the call center and the web chat assistance channel are different. Nevertheless, customer transaction information from one of the channels may be valuable to the other channel. For example, the call center may benefit from a transaction record recorded by the web chat assistance channel corresponding to a customer request for web site navigation assistance. The customer may have had difficulty finding a fraud reporting telephone line on the business's web site.
In existing systems, though, channels are unable to view information stored by other channels even though records of many channels are stored in a central database. If, for example, the call center requests from the central database all records of interactions from the customer, the call center will not receive—or will not be able to decode—transaction records for the customer that are based on web chat assistance transactions.
In some circumstances, it may be practical to formulate an inclusive customer transaction record that includes fields that are designed for a number of different channels. Such an inclusive customer transaction record would be large, especially for businesses that engage in a high volume of customer transactions. The large transaction record would consume data system resources and degrade performance.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods for sharing contact information between business channels.